10 Months

My babies are in the double digits!  With Lucy I felt like ten months was OLD.  She was such a big girl with so much personality (she was walking so that made her feel extra big too).  Ten months with my twins feels different. They are such little babies still-and I want to keep them that way. That said, they are not lacking in personality:)
My babies at ten months:

Joyce:

Joyce is a cuddly and she is very attached to me. She would love it if I held her all day long. As it is, she is held only 75% of the time.  She can get very jealous when I hold Lydia or give anyone else too much attention. That said, she is fun to hold because she nuzzles me with her neck and gives me lots of affection.  She laughs the most often, especially at Lucy's funny faces and antics.  She is very ticklish and has a tiny dimple that pops out on the lower corner of her mouth. While she likes to always know where I am, she can be very adventurous and likes to explore. When she's tired she scratches and pulls her hair behind her left ear. She doesn't often smile at strangers or people she doesn't know very well with the exception of Uncle Jason who she beams at and finds hilarious. She is a big talker, usually repeating "da da da da da da da":) She is constantly trilling with her lips, sputtering and getting spit everywhere.  I adore her cheeks.

Lydia:

searching for binkies

Lydia is my outgoing girl. When I pick her up in the morning she beams at me, but then looks excitedly at the door. While I'm trying to get her to smile at me again (because it is such a gorgeous smile-I can't get enough of it) she wants to get going and see what is going on.  She has so many different smiles- and every one expresses a different emotion for her-it is so fun to figure out what each one means. She has an incredibly long tongue and clucks it constantly.  She loves to play and explore and doesn't care as much if mom is present. She LOVES her binkie. I usually only give binkies in the car or at bedtime but Lydia will find them and hoard them.  I've walked in on her with a binkie in her mouth and one in each hand.  If Joyce has a binkie and she doesn't she will ruthlessly go up and yank it out of Joyce's mouth, even if she already has one in her own mouth-it is a source of entertainment around here:) She has just learned to replace the binkie back in Joyce's mouth after taking it. She thinks she is so funny.

Now the details so I remember:
Both girls can stand alone for awhile, but neither can quite stand up from a sitting or kneeling position yet. Both girls also have two bottom teeth and are getting in their two upper canines. They're looking like jack-o-lanterns right now:)
Sleeping: We are still on a 7pm to 7am schedule. They are great sleepers- I was much better at training them then I was with Lucy. I lay them down in their sleep sacks, say I love you, walk out and they angelically fall asleep. Nap times are the same but they occasionally have a harder time settling down and I have to go in and put a binkie in. During naps they sleep in different rooms so Joyce usually sleeps in the pac n play in the laundry room downstairs ( luckily she's too young to realize it is kind if a creepy room:)

Eating: I feed both girls at the same time. Lately I have to push their seats apart because Joyce loves grabbing the arm of Lydia's bib and yanking.  Joyce is also a spitter- so I often leave mealtimes covered in orange goop. I was making my own baby food in CA, but have been buying it since we moved to UT. We had been told there was a microwave in the house so we didn't bring our own, but it turns out there isn't one here and I hate to spend money on a microwave so we have been living without one-it has been remarkably easy:)

L.O.V.E.

When my sisters and I were little we were asked to sing at church and activities pretty often. Not because we were any good mind you, but usually because my mom was the leader of an organization and it was easier to make us sing during a program than ask someone else. I think we sang the same song at every baptism in 1993. Anyway, we were asked to sing for the adult session of stake conference one year. It was a spelling song. "H-U-G means time to go to bed, night-night. D-A-D says I love you and squeeze me tight" etc. etc. Well, I was never a good speller and it took some serious thought to figure that song out. The last line was "The most important is L-O-V-E that spells Family." Well, that was a very long intro to what love means to me.  I love and adore Danny and each of my girls.

This year we celebrated Valentines with a Saturday family date. "Family" because we couldn't find a babysitter:) We drove to Provo and went to all of the places we have significant memories of while we were dating/engaged.  First stop was the spot where Danny and Jared Collette serenaded me on the night we got engaged

then we walked over the the Maiser building where Danny proposed. Danny reenacted his proposal and I was swept off my feet for the second time:)

We drove up to Rock Canyon and went on a little hike. We used to hike up there a lot when we were engaged and newly married. On one occasion we picked a favorite spot and told ourselves we would come back to that spot whenever we visited Provo. We looked ahead and imagined what our future lives would hold...we were just as corny back then as we are now:) This is the first time we've been back-seven years and three children later. 

After our reminicing we went to my favorite place for lunch-Bajios. Oh how I love Bajios!

We finished our day with a trip to The Chocolate. A cute dessert cafe Becca and Kyle introduced us to in Orem. Their salted carmel brownie is the best thing in the world. I dream about it...

Valentines day is not usually one to the holidays I care very much about, but this year we decorated about a month early so the anticipation has been building. Yesterday was Lucy's preschool party and we decorated sugar cookies with the Blodgetts, so we got the celebrating started early. Today we are celebrating by hanging out with Becca and Ruby-our favortie thing to do.  Later we will go out to eat with Danny at our traditional Valentine's restaurant: Arby's.  We ate there on our first Valentines day when everywhere else in Provo was packed and we hadn't gotten any reservations. It has been our place ever since:)

We're not sick of it yet...

Like the rest of the country we are enjoying a warm winter. Thank heavens-it has really helped my weather adjustment. It frequently looks so nice outside that I don't think to bring hats/gloves or even jackets and then we all freeze in the car when it is actually only 20 degrees. (Don't worry, I have Bundlemes for the babies so they are at least warm. I'm not neglecting them:)

As a result of this nice "warm" weather we haven't had much snow. We get super excited when the snow actually does fall. We have a park across the street from our house and it is the perfect place to run around and get in snow ball fights. It snowed pretty hard the week we got here and we immediately went out to enjoy it:

Christmas 2011

Every year I think I blog about Christmas over a month after the fact. Moving on New Years Eve is a pretty good excuse for this year though. I feel a need to document so here are the main events.

The week before Christmas we moved in with my parents so we weren't living in a moving-zone throughout the holiday.  It was so nice to have a break from the move and just hang out with family. One day we went to the city with the Leinfam. We took the ferry in and went ice skating at the Embarcadero. We did this last year too and I hope it will continue to be a tradition because we had a great time. Lucy loved being with her cousins all day.

It was an Anderson Christmas this year so as is tradition on Christmas Eve we started the evening at my Grandma Joyce's house.  We acted out the nativity with Lucy as Mary, Katy as Gabriel and me as a multitude of heavenly hosts (I just talked very loud:).

We also played the Toy Symphony, carols and the Christmas Concerto as a family. This is a big tradition and something Grandma loves. Lucy loved seeing me play my violin and I loved seeing my Dad play his viola.  Lucy played the toy trumpet during the toy symphony, which is the same instrument I always played for that piece. She loved it. This year I played the water whistle during that piece and let me tell you-it was intense.

We went home to my parent's house to enjoy other traditions like singing "Hang up the Baby Stocking" and watching a Muppet's Christmas Carol. I wish I knew how to use my camera because this would have a been a super cute shot of Lydia:

On Christmas morning we all managed to stay asleep until 7 AM. We let Joyce stay asleep and went down to see what Santa brought us. Santa brought Lucy a new singing Rapunzel doll. Santa learned from his mistakes and braided Rapunzel's hair this year.

Lydia and Joyce got this new play stand from Santa and loved it.

 We opened presents for awhile, had a wonderful breakfast with Grandma Joyce, and went to church. After church we continued opening and playing with our presents. This time Joyce got into the wrapping a bit.

I was very spoiled this year. I got a whole winter wardrobe from my parents, a new diaper bag from the Leiningers, two awesome shirts from Becca and a tripod from Danny.  Katy gave me some increidbly thoughtful gifts: she made this plaque:

  and she shadowboxed these jammies.

Isn't she thoughtful? I cried.
We had a fantastic Christmas.  We loved spending quality time with our families, especially knowing we'd be leaving so soon. Okay, gonna cry if I keep typing. The end.

8/9 months

I missed posting about the babies at eight months due to Christmas/moving and now they are nine months. I would skip it altogether, but they have changed a TON these last two months.

At eight months both girls started to crawl. Joyce was first and Lydia started shortly after. Joyce is a bit more coordinated about it, Lydia still has a, shall we say, unique crawl. Both girls have gotten very fast. Lydia was the first to pull herself up to stand and now they both stand and shuffle along the furniture. Their favorite thing is to pull themselves up on me or on each other. Pulling yourself up using an unstable baby as your base is never a good idea:) (sorry about all the iphone pictures, I haven't gotten out my camera ever since i got it)

This month I stopped nursing them.  I'm a little sad about it but it was definitely time. Starting in December I started supplementing more and pumping for feedings because they were getting too big to tandem feed.  I still tandem fed them at 5AM so they would sleep in, but with the move I often wasn't home/didn't have time to pump, so my supply slowly dwindled. By the time we got here I was pumping once at night and breastfeeding them in the morning.  With the stairs I decided to finally drop that morning feeding and then stopped pumping when I just wasn't producing enough to make it worth it. I am amazed how much formula I go through now! Both girls can hold their own bottles which makes life a lot easier.

When we moved to UT I also started feeding them three meals a day. Joyce is definitely more picky and will refuse some foods, but Lydia will eat anything:) I haven't been making my own purees since we got here because we don't have a microwave yet. We left ours in CA because we thought there was one in the house already, but there isn't and I'm too lazy and cheap to go buy another one-so we're just doing without right now, which is surprisingly easy.  Neither baby has mastered the pincer grip yet but they do eat some finger foods like graham crackers, puffs, yogurt melt and banana.
We went to the Dr for well checks yesterday and I learned that both babies are 50% for both head and length and only 5% for weight. The Dr wasn't worried because they were both light and had steady weight gain-but they both weigh only about 17 lbs! I thought they were tiny! 

Joyce:
My Joyce is adorable. She is very adventurous and likes to explore. She shows her affection by crawling up to you and bumping her head against you. You know she loves you if you get a forehead bump. She has been sick lately and the Dr confirmed she has a double ear infection. This has made her pretty cranky for awhile so she usually gets held more than Lydia. When she is miserable and feeling sick she will put her head on my chest and shake it back and forth. It is sad but I frequently love it too. She laughs a lot more than Lyd, usually at something Lucy does. She has three teeth-- two bottom teeth and a canine on top.  I hadn't noticed the canine until a nurse pointed it out yesterday-it has been their awhile too!  Her smile is precious and we see it a lot more often then we used to.  She is a momma's girl-she has a definite preference for me and gets very excited when I come to get her-either from bed or from her dad:)

Lydia:
My Lydia is adorable too. She has an incredibly cute groggy face when she first wakes up in the morning and it always reminds me of Katy. We have a picture of Katy as a baby with the exact same groggy look- I swear they could be twins:) Lydia is a bit more self sufficient then her sister-by which I mean she can go play without checking in with me and if I am sitting somewhere she doesn't need to be on top of me-although she frequently likes to be.  She is a very good at pulling herself up and prefers to stand rather than sit or crawl. I love her grin. She loves her binkie. I typically only give them to the girls when they're in bed or in the stroller/car seat. She gets excited when she sees one and will grab it incredibly fast. She loves to steal one out of her sisters mouth as well. My favorite thing is when I catch her with a binkie in each hand and she alternates which one she sucks on. 

groggy:)

Happy

Right now Lucy is playing at a friend's house, both babies are asleep and I have a whole hour to myself.  Life is good. Here is what I'm happy about at this moment:
*We are really liking our new house, ward and state ( not to stay though Mom). 
*We had an awesome weekend visiting Matt and Lillian at their home, hanging out with Jared and Nisha, watching the 49er game with Blodgetts, and staying warm inside while we watched the snow fall. 
*Our ward is incredibly nice and we really like walking one block over to our ward building. 
*Lucy is loving preschool and I'm loving that it is three days a week. 
*It feels so good to be fully moved in.  I am on my computer less because its in the basement-which I like, but I have my new iPhone and Instagram and that keeps my tech needs satisfied.
*I love seeing Becca and Ruby once a week-if not more:)
* Lindsay gave me eyelash extensions which make me look like a whole other person-like someone who really tries! They kind of freak me out, but I like them.
*I am looking forward to our annual trip to Zions where we will see Grandma, Grandpa and Katy -February can't come fast enough!

A Long Month

It has been exactly a month since I blogged last and today I finally have the internet again. December was crazy. We found out we were moving, the babies started teething and crawling, we celebrated Chrsitmas with out families, all got a horrible cold that lasted at least three weeks (and is still in Danny and Joycies' chests, moved 1/4 of our stuff to a storage unit, moved the rest to a moving van, said goodbye to our CA house and drove to Utah.  We got here on New Years Eve and have been slowly settling in ever since. My parents and Katy drove with us up here and spent a fun week feeding and playing with us, so I am only barely getting in to real life.

Both Lucy and Danny started school on Monday. Danny at the U studying real estate development and Lucy at Ms. Wendy's preschool. Both really like it:)

Next posts need to document: babies at eight months, Christmas, Ruby (aka-the reason Lucy is happy in UT)